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Political Environment Most Affects Economic Outlook for Affluent Investors

11/26/2014

According to a new Spectrem Group survey of affluent investors. More than eight-in-ten Millionaires cite the political environment (84 percent) and government gridlock (85 percent) as their primary national concerns. The weeks following the midterm elections on Nov. 4 have borne this out.

President Obama and Congressional leadership said all the right things following the elections, which saw the Republicans gain control of the Senate and the House for the first time in eight years. At a 75-min. press conference, the President said he was “eager to work with the new Congress to make the next two years as productive as possible… We can surely find ways to work together. It’s time for us to take care of business.”

For his part, Mitch McConnell, who will become the Senate Majority Leader, said in a separate press conference that the Senate would “work together” with the president on issues on which there is agreement and that a two-party political system did not mean “we have to live in perpetual conflict.”

On Nov. 21, the President signed an executive order on immigration that was immediately condemned by Republican leadership. "All year long I have warned the president that by taking unilateral action on matters such as his healthcare law or by threatening action repeatedly on immigration, he was making it impossible to build the trust necessary to work together," House Majority Leader John Boehner said.

So it is not surprising that when asked in November what is the story in the news most affecting their economic outlook, the highest percentage of affluent respondents said the political environment. The percentage was slightly higher among Millionaire respondents (37 percent).

This response is the highest received to this question since November 2012, when the president and Congress collided over the fiscal cliff. At that time, half of Affluent investors said that the political environment was the news story most affecting their economic outlook.